Before my first trip to Israel, in June of 2012, I was honestly uninterested in all issues regarding this home for all Jewish people. Traveling with my childhood synagogue, where I would soon be deemed a Jewish adult, we experienced the flavors of Jerusalem, rode camels through the desert, and climbed up the ridges of Masada. One experience stood out to be the most spiritually moving, the Western Wall. As I placed a note written to G-d in the last standing wall of the Second Temple, my spiritual connection to Judaism heightened, and has never fallen since. Even though this visit to the Kotel was immensely sacred, the separation of men and women intrigued me to the point where I asked my mother why, and with a shrug of the shoulders we proceeded to the rest our trip. Fast forwarding about five years through my Jewish career, including summer camps, youth groups, and my Bat Mitzvah, I was assigned this research project. Instantaneously, without any effort at all, I knew I wanted to write about Israel and the controversy surrounding the Kotel.
Before starting research, I thought that the issue surrounding the Kotel was having detrimental effects to the people of Israel, dividing them, as simply as the partition at the Western Wall. Because of this I decided to shape my original thesis around the physical and emotional effects the conflict was having on Israelis. Although the conflict continues to create major kahoots amist the plaza area, this issue isn’t high on the radar for most Israelis. So, instead of finding articles reporting recents fights, breaking out in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, I found that this issue almost primarily surrounds Israel’s government. Because of these findings, I altered my question to address the tensions between Israel's government and society. As I moved my research into a government based direction, I was disappointed to discover Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption. Shortly before Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to suspend his previously proposed egalitarian prayer space on June 25, 2017, he allowed a house party bill to pass in which the ultra-Orthodoxy would have an advantaged voice over Judaic matters in Israel (Brownfeld). In result to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “freeze,” offense was being taken by American Jews. This, unfortunately, took my research outside of the barriers of the Western Wall, and began to add another category to my thesis, international. After breezing by the research portion of the paper, I discovered the planning process to be most challenging due to the complexity of the issue. As I began to plan the paper, it seemed as if everything affected everything. The intertwining quality of the evidence created numerous scratch pieces of paper with a maze of lines connecting evidence to categories, categories to subcategories, subcategories to evidence, and any other possible combination. Clarity finally came, after I was able to discover either the political or international root of the evidence. After I had made this realization and finally completed the planning process, I began to write. While composing, I honestly feel as if I found my "voice," while experimenting with various forms of figurative language and still maintaining a more serious, argumentative tone. Because I am less of a serious person, these flourishes of stylistic flavor allowed for my linguistic technique to shine through, adding a unique quality to my paper. Currently, activist groups such as Women of the Wall, Israeli people, and Americans continue to fight for equality. Because the controversy surrounding the Kotel has created an immense strain on Diaspora and American Jewry, a solution needs to be reached soon. But, "we Jews put up a long fight," according to Raleigh's Rabbi Jenny Solomon, so this failing relationship may forevor be endangered. |
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Works Cited
Brownfeld, Allan C. "Israel rejects freedom for non-Orthodox streams of Judaism." Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2017: p. 54+.
General OneFile, Web. 29 November 2017.
Solomon, Jenny. Personal interview. 31 November 2017
Header borrowed from "Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn"
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/israel-a-concise-history-of-a-nation-reborn
General OneFile, Web. 29 November 2017.
Solomon, Jenny. Personal interview. 31 November 2017
Header borrowed from "Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn"
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/israel-a-concise-history-of-a-nation-reborn